


and they’ve gotta be larger than life

by absention



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Not Hockey Player(s), Comedy of Errors, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Getting Together, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-21 15:51:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11360637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absention/pseuds/absention
Summary: Dylan is pretty sure Connor is dating a superhero.





	and they’ve gotta be larger than life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elegencie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elegencie/gifts).



> For Steph, whose dedication to both unconditionally love and drag Dylan Strome inspired the ingredients that went into this fic and these characters as much as the two birds in her Dear Author letter that I wanted to kill with one stone. This hot mess is sponsored by gratuitous puns, pop culture references, fourth wall breaks, and that one Arby’s commercial that got Holding Out For A Hero stuck in my head.
> 
>  **Warning** for brief references to violence and one instance of suicidal ideation mentioned in passing/super dismissively. Nothing graphic on either front, and the latter more joking than anything serious or dark, but I wanted the heads up here, just to be safe.

**WEEKLY HOT TAKE: THE THIN LINE BETWEEN HERO AND ZERO**

**__**_The “Wonder Kids” (or_ Wunder _Kids, if you ask Jaeger, probably) have taken a lot of heat from mainstream media lately. With K.D. now in Jersey and Incognito off to New York, the former media darlings can’t seem to catch a break. Headlines claim they can do more. Crime rates and a pending alliance with fellow young guns say otherwise._

_Spectacle has taken the world by storm—not to discredit Jaeger, Oracle or Sentinel, who have obviously done more than their fair share of ass-kicking. Coming into his own as a sophomore superhero, Spectacle lead the unofficial leaderboard among superheroes last year in two categories: civilians saved and criminals jailed. A third, if you own a subscription to Teen Dreamz: most teen magazine covers._

_Jaeger has put up “killer” numbers, too, while Sentinel has mostly stuck to the shadows, beating goons up and putting the fear of God into even the baddest of bad guys. Oracle is no slacker in the stats department, either, and he seems to be sticking around for the long haul, in no apparent rush to reunite the once-famous Kid Line._

_Why the criticism? The sky is blue. Water is wet. Media is media._

_When Phoenix went dark, headlines read_ PHOENIX: POWERLESS? _and_ HAS PHOENIX GONE ROGUE? _before Phoenix inevitably returned to action not even two weeks later, powers clearly intact_. _Rumors of early retirement spread like wildfire when Captain Canada was down and out for the count. Russian Machine leaving The Great Eight for The Inferno or, hilariously, even P.E.N.G.U.I.N. was the talk of the town for a month straight._

_Non-existent rivalries. Feuds between known alliances. Stats of little relevance. These are a few of media’s favorite things._

_Maybe the Wonder Kids weren’t named PEOPLE’s Hottest Super Squad—who cares?—or didn’t become champions on some faraway alien planet—maybe not yet?—or didn’t win Entertainment Weekly’s Catch of the Year—don’t those usually involve entire cities being destroyed anyway?—but they fight the good fight and protect the people they promised to, and in the grand scheme of things, isn’t that what defines a hero?_

_Verdict? The kids are all right._

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Dylan is pretty sure Connor is dating a superhero.

“What kind of black magic,” Dylan mutters under his breath, peering down at his coffee. Three years of college—late nights of studying, mornings after late nights of studying, mornings after late nights of _partying_ —made possible by coffee, but none comparable to _this_ sweet bliss. “Who _is_ he?”

Connor smiles into his own steaming mug, clearly pleased. “Good, right?”

Dylan’s not going to lie. He had his doubts.

About the coffee, sure, but mostly about Beautiful Barista Boyfriend.

It’s all Dylan hears about, the pretty face down the block with _Leon_ on his name tag. Connor literally never shuts up about him, even when Dylan has his head buried in his textbook in some vain attempt to be a responsible person who does responsible things like studying, and has to keep reminding himself that there are worse things than harmless crushes on friendly neighborhood baristas. The summer after freshman year, he walked in on Mitch mid-blowjob because Mitch neglected to put a fucking sock on his doorknob.

Speaking of—

“Marns would probably call this a wet dream.”

Connor wrinkles his nose at Dylan. “Gross.”

“Well, yeah,” Dylan agrees easily. “But _apt_.”

“Apt?” Connor echoes in disbelief. He throws a packet of sugar at Dylan, who catches it with minimal effort. “Journalism’s changed you.”

“Hardly,” Dylan says with a scoff. He rips open the packet of sugar with his teeth and cheerfully dumps it on Connor to prove his point.

Behind him, a voice says, “Am I interrupting something?”

Canada’s next top model is who greets Dylan when he swivels around in his seat to get a look. Dylan usually goes for simple, but he has _eyes_. The dude is hot. The dude’s name is also Leon. Huh. Well. That makes sense.

“So you’re the hot guy Connor never shuts up about,” Dylan says, instead of something normal like _hi_ or _hello_ or even _sorry if you heard enough of this conversation to hear me calling the coffee you made a wet dream_. Better to be the embarrassing BFF than the jealous ex-FWB.

From across the table, a hiss of Dylan’s name and a pointed kick to the shin go ignored.

“You must be the infamous best friend,” Leon says, cracking a smile, and God, of course he had to be charming, too, didn’t he.

Dylan salutes him. He repeats _embarrassing best friend_ in his head like a mantra. “Faithful sidekick, at your service.”

Something resembling alarm passes across Leon’s face, but then he’s looking past Dylan and exchanging glances with Connor, and it’s gone in the blink of an eye. A trick of the light, maybe. “I’m Leon,” he says unnecessarily, and stretches his hand out for Dylan to shake. His smile turns sheepish, as though it’s just occurred to him that he’s wearing a name tag. “But you knew that already.”

“Dylan,” says Dylan, just to humor him. Just because he’s a jealous asshole doesn’t mean he has to be a jealous _asshole_. He has manners. He’ll use them. What would his mom say if he didn’t?

Leon pulls out one of the extra chairs at their table and makes himself comfortable close to Connor, not quite cozying up to him, but situating himself close enough to Connor that he probably could, if he wanted to. “I like your articles.”

“Really?” Dylan doesn’t mean to sound so surprised. Plenty of people read the paper, but rarely for something beyond the fake-deep wisdom in the advice column or for the trivial gossip to keep up with the _happs_. “I, uh, wouldn’t call them actual articles.”

“Not the Hot Takes,” Leon says, and then, in a rush, as if Dylan needs the assurance, “But those, too.”

The surprise must show on Dylan’s face, because Connor smiles fondly—at who, Dylan isn’t sure, and he’s less sure he actually wants to know—and explains, “I still have some of the older papers. Showed Drai some of your articles.”

This is the first Dylan’s hearing of any secret memorabilia or hidden-away shrines to Dylan’s mediocre endeavors in journalism, but that isn’t the part Dylan’s brain wants to focus on. Apparently. “Drai?”

“Draisaitl,” Leon elaborates, at about the same time Connor does. Both their cheeks redden simultaneously. _Cute_ , Dylan thinks. It’d be a lot cuter if it didn’t make Dylan want to puke. Just a little. “German.”

“Cool,” Dylan says, and waits politely until there’s a lull in the conversation before he pretends to look at the time on his phone. There’s making a hasty retreat, and then there’s being _transparent_. “Hey, uh, I should probably head back. I’ve got some studying to do.”

Connor raises his eyebrows dubiously because—right, since when has Dylan given enough of a shit to _not_ put off studying until the last possible minute. Alright. Not the least transparent excuse, in retrospect.

“Okay,” is all Connor says, though, instead of any variation of calling Dylan out on his bullshit.

  
  
  
  
  


The first thing he does when he gets back to his and Connor’s apartment is call Mitch.

“I’m guessing Davo told you he’s going steady with someone now.”

“Yeah,” Mitch says carefully, like he’s known and just hasn’t wanted to touch the topic with a ten-foot pole around Dylan. “You’re—” There’s a careful pause on Mitch’s end that Dylan’s going to pretend isn’t for the sake of either his heart or his ego. “Are you cool with it?”

Dylan makes a dismissive noise. “He was my best friend before he was ever anything more, y’know? He’s still my best friend.” It’s not a bald-faced lie, but he can’t say it doesn’t sting, seeing someone else get a happily ever after with Connor. “I mean, we only hooked up a couple of times. It’s chill.”

 _Not really_ , a voice says unhelpfully in his head.

They were five hours into a movie marathon, tangled comfortably on the couch together, when Connor told him, “I’m seeing someone,” one hand still curled loosely around Dylan’s ankle. If it weren't for the squeeze and the tentative hope that spread with the flush of Connor’s face, Dylan might have laughed and clapped Connor on the back, _good joke_ and _nice try_ and _I almost fell for that_ , or do something drastic and telling like fall off the couch in his haste to remove his feet from Connor’s lap.

Dylan very deliberately kept his feet where they were, and shot Connor his _winningest_ smile, even with the world shaky and unsteady beneath him. “Yeah?” he said, and hoped that for once in their lives Connor couldn’t see through him like fucking glass.

“Yeah,” said Connor, but the slant of his mouth was all wrong, his shoulders too taut, and he was avoiding staring at Dylan head-on like—well, Dylan didn’t know. He still doesn’t. He didn’t want to read too much into it. Maybe Connor was nervous about telling him. Maybe Connor worried about rejection. 

“Tell me about him,” Dylan said, because he either hated himself enough to want to know, or loved Connor too much to not ask.

“He’s nice?” Dylan says, now, for lack of anything better to say. It’s phrased too much like a question, but his first impression beyond _this guy is way out of everyone’s league_ was that Leon was polite, and either really good at feigning interest or genuinely eager to befriend the people in Connor’s life.

Dylan can almost sense Mitch’s surprise over the line. “You’re really okay with it, then?”

“Yeah,” Dylan says again, a little annoyed now. How many times is he going to have to say it before Mitch believes him? It’s not—he’s not going to tell Connor he shouldn’t date Leon or anything, even if he’s no closer to being over Connor than he was yesterday, or the day before, or when they just stopped hooking up out of the blue. Jealous asshole, not jealous _asshole_ —that’s his new motto, isn’t it?

“I just want you to be happy,” Mitch says placatingly. Dylan might know what Auston Matthews’ dick looks like thanks to Mitch’s carelessness, but Mitch is still nothing if not a good friend. Too good for the likes of Dylan. “I can want that for the both of you, can’t I? You deserve to be happy, too, Stromer.”

  
  
  
  
  


Breaking and entering with Jakob Chychrun in the name of journalism a week later is apparently what’s going to make Dylan happy.

(Okay, _actually_ , Dylan showed up at his door unannounced, not exactly expecting to hook up, but not _not_ expecting it, either. He’s always been down with whatever Jakob wanted. Sometimes they game. Sometimes Dylan gets to be reminded how much game Jakob has. Just guys being dudes.

And then Jakob answered the door with his camera gear in tow, all teeth when he grinned. “Super activity a couple of blocks from campus. You in?”

The answer was a resounding yes, and Jakob knew it before he ever asked Dylan the question. When he wasn’t taking advantage of Dylan’s actual hard-on, he was taking advantage of Dylan’s figurative hard-on for The Scoop. Or superheroes.)

“Do I want to know where you learned how to pick a lock?” Dylan asks, watching Jakob work a bobby pin and his pocket knife into the lock. “Better question. Do I want to know why you conveniently have both a bobby pin and a pocket knife small enough to pick a lock?”

Jakob shimmies the knife around before looking over his shoulder. “Investigative journalism.”

“That’s it? Investigative journalism?” Dylan doesn’t know why he’s surprised. Nothing will top Jakob liking his pretty face better behind a camera instead of in front of one—Dylan’s going to get to the bottom of _that_ one of these days—but that doesn’t mean Dylan doesn’t want answers. “You’re not going to tell me you’re a super secret agent? A spy? A _superhero_?”

Jakob’s only answer is a snort, but the door creaks open, so Dylan will take that as the only confirmation he needs. Secret agent, then.

They follow the sounds of explosions and gunfire—truly peak dumbassery, Dylan will realize—quick to duck behind a corner when someone goes flying into one of the walls ahead of them with a high-pitched yell.

As far as front row seats go, Dylan can’t complain. He may not have always wanted to be a journalist, but he’s wanted to be this close to the action since he was five, sitting cross-legged in front of the TV in the living room on a Saturday morning, watching the news instead of cartoons.

Dylan peers around the corner. The coast _looks_ clear, but that doesn’t mean it _is_. When he turns back to relay as much to Jakob, Jakob is—tiptoeing down the hallway. What the fuck.

“ _Chych_ ,” he hisses after him, and again when Jakob only gestures for Dylan to follow, going on his merry way. Unless Dylan missed a memo, Dylan is supposed to be the one doing dumb shit, not the other way around.

Jakob disappears around another corner, and Dylan contemplates adopting Connor’s risk versus reward shtick before ultimately following him into the jaws of _hell_. That’s dramatic, even by Dylan’s standards, until Jakob has to yank him down urgently the second Dylan rounds the corner to narrowly avoid the ball of fire that misses its mark by a mile.

Jakob only shrugs apologetically when Dylan stares sidelong at him.

“Yeah, yeah,” mutters Dylan. He gets it. He just never suspected Jakob of being this dedicated to the craft. “ _Investigative journalism_. I can’t believe you’re making me be the voice of reason.”

From here, Dylan spies Sentinel and Oracle fighting off an assortment of henchmen: Shade’s, most noticeably, but there are some Dylan recognizes as Brain Freeze’s and Meltdown’s. Brain Freeze is the only Big Bad around, as far as Dylan can see, and sure as hell more intimidating in person than Dylan ever thought him to be. That doesn’t take a lot, admittedly, but he towers over everyone else on the battlefield, standing comfortably at 6'8", at _least_.

Does Dylan still think he should be the poster boy for a fro yo place? Obviously.

Fashionably late, Spectacle drops down from the sky and takes at least a dozen henchmen out with his grand entrance. Dylan has to remind himself this is neither the time nor the place to pump his fist in the air like a protagonist from an 80s flick, especially when Jaeger materializes behind Brain Freeze to take the heat off Spectacle.

Where Spectacle is, Jaeger follows—it’s a whole narrative on the internet, dating back to as early as Spectacle’s debut. There’s probably a standalone Wiki page about it. There’s probably _fan fiction_ about it.

“You see your money shot yet?” Dylan asks Jakob, because dicks out for superheroes and all, but they’re going to get made if they don’t hightail it out of here soon. Dylan has done a lot of dumb things in his lifetime, but he likes to think he’s usually at least smart about it.

Jakob rises from his crouch, lifting the camera to his face. “Bingo.”

Almost in slow motion, the flash goes off unexpectedly as Jakob snaps the shot.

Shit.

Dylan would ask why the hell the flash is on, but Jakob looks more caught off-guard by it than him, if the panic on his face is any indication, and there are more pressing matters at hand, anyway, like the sudden unwanted attention—small, in the midst of battle, but snowballing like an avalanche as more heads turn their way.

 _Shit_.

He tugs Jakob closer by the strap of his camera bag and whispers, “This is probably the part where we run.”

They double back down the same hallway, and get as far as the bottom of the second staircase they encountered before one of Shade’s stupid evil lamp minions intervenes. With an axe in hand. Because _of course_ , right?

Screw everything Dylan said before. This up close and personal, he’s rethinking the whole close-to-the-action thing.

“We’re gonna die,” he says, temporarily ignoring Evil Lamp Minion #1. It’s a perfectly rational and totally justifiable response to their current predicament. There’s nowhere to exit stage left—but God, does he really need to stop letting Mitch rant about theatre, though in a second he might be _dead_ , so that’s great. “My inevitable untimely death, by the way? Your fault.”

“Okay,” Jakob says, panting beside him. “Maybe this was a mistake.”

Dylan hopes his skepticism is unmissable. “ _Maybe_?”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” the henchman grits out, and then vanishes into thin air with a _snap crackle pop_. Like a magic trick. Or a Rice Krispies commercial. That’s normal.

It’s probably best that a hand covers his mouth when Jaeger materializes out of thin fucking air in front of them and sheds _years_ off Dylan’s life, because Dylan—look, he doesn’t _scream_ , but he does yell. Understandably, given the circumstances.

“Keep quiet if you want to live,” Jaeger tells them, which is really just a polite way of saying _shut the fuck up_. Okay. Cool.

Dylan isn’t about to tell someone with superpowers to keep _his_ mouth shut, but it’s a close thing. He waits until Jaeger moves his hand instead of forcibly removing it himself, then settles on something considerably more polite so he won’t get decked in the face. “Thanks.”

Jaeger stares, wary, then says, “Don’t puke.”

That makes approximately zero sense until Dylan feels a weird sensation that leaves him off-kilter. There’s a pit in his stomach the size of the moon, like the bottom of it has dropped out, and Dylan is still trying valiantly not to throw up the pizza he ate for lunch when he recovers enough to blink his eyes open.

They’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

Or, well, they’re not inside anymore, anyway.

On his right, Jakob says, “Um.”

Dylan seconds that.

Before Dylan can get a word in edgewise, Jaeger lifts his hand. “Yes, you just teleported. Yes, I’ll be taking this”—he brandishes a memory card between his thumb and forefinger that Dylan can only guess is Jakob’s when Jakob touches a hand to his camera, confused—“for safe keeping. No, I wouldn’t recommend trespassing again.” His eyes linger on Dylan. “Stay out of trouble,” he says, and presumably teleports back to the melee.

What a guy.

“Nice to meet you, too!” Dylan calls after him uselessly. “Jerk.”

“You’d still bang him,” says Jakob thoughtfully, missing the point—which isn’t that Dylan probably _would_ , in whatever alternate universe it’s even an option, or that Dylan wouldn’t say no to a threesome with Spectacle, which he told Jakob in _secrecy_. As if just remembering Jaeger personally inconvenienced him, too, Jakob says as an afterthought, “He took my money shot.”

Dylan laughs despite himself. “My guy, I thought _my_ priorities were fucked.”

He fumbles for his phone out of habit on the walk back, but it’s conspicuously missing from his back pocket when he digs for it. Great. Go figure. He stares woefully in the direction of the warehouse. Whatever higher power Dylan pissed off is laughing their ass off, he’s sure.

  
  
  
  
  


By the time they get back to Jakob’s place, Jakob looks ready to sleep for a week. Jakob must think the same of him, because he doesn’t even ask if Dylan wants to crash here. “Crouser’s off doing something with TK, and I doubt he’s coming back tonight.”

That gives Dylan three options, even if Jakob doesn’t say it outright: he can either crash on the couch like a lazy bum, sleep off his action hangover in Lawson’s room, or crawl into Jakob’s bed with him—not even to do anything, necessarily, which Dylan knows from personal experience.

The thought of human contact is tempting. Dylan is only human, and it’d be easy to fall into bed with Jakob, regardless of sex. Jakob is loyal to a fault, like so many people in Dylan’s life—more than a warm body, better than a rebound. Dylan inclines his head towards Lawson’s room. “Is it cool if I crash in there?”

If Jakob is surprised, he doesn’t show it. “Sure.”

  
  
  
  
  


The first thing Connor says to him when they see each other the next morning is, “Where were you last night?”

“Uh,” Dylan says, barely through the front door. This isn’t a walk of shame, but it might as well be, with the look Connor’s giving him. Like he’s sizing Dylan up. “Out. With Jake.”

Connor keeps staring—a little too accusingly, for Dylan’s taste. “Doing what?”

Dylan folds his arms across his chest, scowling. He didn’t come home to be interrogated, and what the fuck does it matter what he was doing? Connor never cared before. And it’s not like Connor was home, either.

“I’ll spare you the details,” Dylan half-lies. On the list of illegal things he and Jakob did last night, Jakob doing should-be illegal things with his mouth was never one. That doesn’t mean he’s about to spill the rest of the beans. Connor will assume what he’ll assume, and if it’s sex with Jakob, great. Cool. Awesome. So much for Dylan not being an asshole. “Weren’t you out with Leon?”

“Yeah,” says Connor, something unreadable flitting across his face. He clears his throat. At least he doesn’t look like he’s going to do something like _ground_ Dylan anymore. “I was just worried. You haven’t answered any of my calls.”

Dylan feels a stab of guilt for the second time in as many days. “Sorry,” he says, and reaches for his back pocket before remembering his phone isn’t there. “I—” _Was somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be? Saw something I shouldn’t have?_ Both true. Both TMI. “Had a busy night,” Dylan finishes lamely. Not _un_ true. Probably still TMI. “I must have left my phone at Jake’s.”

“Okay,” Connor says eventually. “Just—be safe, you know?”

Dylan coughs a laugh into his hand. “Are you telling me to practice safe sex?”

“What?” asks Connor, face going fifty shades of red. “That’s—what? _No_. I’m telling you to be careful. You’ve seen the stories on the news.”

“So you _don’t_ want me to practice safe sex?”

Connor makes a face, scandalized. “Shut up. We’re not having this conversation.” When Dylan predictably refuses to shut up, Connor reaches around him for the door handle and says, loudly, over Dylan’s brilliant McCondom joke, “I’m leaving! I have class!”

 _We’ve touched each other’s dicks_ , Dylan doesn’t call after him.

  
  
  
  
  


The first time Connor has Leon over at their apartment, Connor himself is nowhere to be found. Leon, on the other hand, has made himself at home on the couch in their living room. It’s not like Dylan minds—but he is curious. Naturally.

“Stood up by your date at your date’s apartment? Cold.”

“Something like that,” Leon says, the beginnings of a smile stretching across his face. “Connor had some unfinished business to take care of.”

Dylan exaggeratedly rolls his eyes. “Business majors.”

He makes a detour to the kitchen to grab the carton of OJ from the fridge and pours himself a glass instead of drinking it straight from the carton like a heathen. That Connor’s not around to see his character development is a shame. Then again, Dylan supposes Connor’s never really around that much these days.

“I know,” says Leon. He’s playing along. Color Dylan impressed. “Always so busy.”

 _Aren’t you both?_ Dylan bites back. “They’re the worst,” Dylan says instead, plastering on what he hopes is a convincing enough smile to match Leon’s. It seems to do the trick, because Leon hums his agreement, eyes crinkling at the corners.

As it turns out, Leon is a pretty chill dude.

They end up exchanging embarrassing stories about Connor—according to Leon, Connor nearly set his eat-in kitchen on fire making toast, leaving the toast in too long and _then_ trying to put the ensuing small fire out with water—until Connor steps into the apartment in a hoodie Dylan’s never seen before, soaking wet. Dylan didn’t even realize it was raining outside.

“You forget your umbrella?”

“Something like that,” Connor comments absently, kicking his shoes off. He cuts a glance to Dylan, then does a double take when he belatedly spots Leon sitting beside him on the couch. At first Dylan thinks Connor’s spaced on ditching date night for school, but Connor recovers smoothly before he reads too much into it, cool as a cucumber. “Thanks for keeping him company.”

“No problem,” Dylan says, caught off-guard when there’s an echo from his right. He glances back at Leon, who looks mortified when, presumably, he realizes that Connor was talking to Dylan. “Jinx,” says Dylan, the corner of his mouth inching upwards as he’s reminded of the introduction back at the coffee shop. He’s feeling gracious. “You owe me a coffee.”

“Isn’t it—” Leon starts to say, before cutting himself off when Dylan arches his eyebrows. Good man. “Right. Coffee.”

Connor looks pleased by the development as he situates himself between them, and Dylan almost forgets he’s meant to be the third wheel until about halfway through the movie, when Connor lists towards Leon in his sleep. Except Leon’s nodded off, too, and Dylan has to laugh a little.

He pulls the throw blanket Connor’s mom insisted on them buying off the back of the couch and settles it over the both of them, careful not to wake them. That in of itself isn’t weird, but watching them— _them_ , not just Connor, however briefly—is, which Dylan doesn’t want to examine too closely.

He steadies himself with a breath and goes the fuck to bed.

  
  
  
  
  


It’s not like Dylan actively seeks out danger, after the whole abandoned warehouse fiasco. It’s more like danger finds _him_. Case in point: Dylan’s minding his own fucking business when he gets yanked down a dark alleyway.

“What the fuck?” he says, before promptly realizing he’s being manhandled against a wall by one of Brain Freeze’s goons. A second one appears out of nowhere, and Dylan’s having a hard time finding Brain Freeze funny, now.

“Boss says you were one of those meddling kids snoopin’ around,” Thing One says, dangling Dylan’s missing phone in front of Dylan’s face, freshly cracked screen and all. His phone was always a piece of shit but that piece of shit was his baby.

“A dark alley is a bit cliche, don’t you think?” Good to know his brain-to-mouth filter has a death wish. “Nowhere better to terrorize the youth? Like a dingy hideout, maybe? Wait, let me guess. Ice cream shop, right?” _Shut up, shut up, shut up_.

Thing Two barks out a nasty-sounding laugh. “You’re a mouthy one, ain’t ya?”

“All bark and no bite, I bet,” Thing One adds with a sneer. Dick.

Dylan is saved from having to come up with a scathing reply when a third voice emerges from the shadows. “I know someone that’s all bite, if you’re interested.” Something crackles in the air before Thing One vanishes with it.

“ _Shit_ ,” hisses Thing Two. He yanks Dylan towards him and spins him around, squeezing an arm around Dylan’s throat as he calls out, “Try anything funny with me, and I snap his neck!” Because threatening the good guy always bodes so well for the bad guys in the movies.

As if on cue, a brick sails through the air, whistling past Dylan’s ear and smashing into Thing Two’s face with a satisfying crunch. The second Thing Two’s hands go flying up to his nose, a familiar silhouette materializes before Dylan and sends Thing Two careening back, which is Dylan’s only warning before he finds himself on the rooftop of his and Connor’s apartment building between one blink and the next.

Teleporting still gives Dylan vertigo, but he at least doesn’t feel like throwing up this time.

“Twice in one week?” jokes Dylan. “Didn’t know superheroes were bodyguards for hire.”

“We’re not,” Jaeger tells him shortly, the joke flying over his head and into the dumpster to the side of the building. Might as well throw Dylan in there, too. “And I’d rather not make a habit of it, if it’s all the same to you.” He sounds remarkably less like he has a stick shoved all the way up his ass, the next time he opens his mouth to say something. “Are you okay?”

For someone who’s had two too many near-death experiences recently? “Peachy.”

There’s a long pause, long enough that Dylan thinks that’s that, and then there’s the sound of a zipper opening and closing. “As peachy as this?”

When Dylan cranes his neck to see what the hell he’s talking about, Jaeger’s lost his hood. The cowl is still there, but he feels more human like this, even cloaked in darkness, blending in with the shadows. Like the rest of the world, Dylan forgets, sometimes, that there are people underneath all the armor. The reminder is gratifying.

Dylan is so fixated on that that a beat passes before he actually processes his old phone in Jaeger’s outstretched hand, a little worse for wear since Thing One was waving it around like a carrot in front of a horse but alive and—relatively—in one piece.

“Thanks,” murmurs Dylan, fingers lingering on Jaeger’s outstretched hand when he makes to grab the phone.

Maybe it’s because Jaeger doesn’t pull his hand away, maybe it’s because Dylan jumps into everything head first, do first and ask later—either way, Dylan surges forward and presses his mouth to Jaeger’s. Like an idiot.

He assumes Jaeger will protest or pull away, maybe even deck Dylan in the face like Dylan was trying to avoid, but he counts to ten Mississippis and tastes peppermint and chocolate before Jaeger actually pulls back. Slowly at first, and then all at once like he’s been burned by fire.

Jaeger doesn’t come across as the running type, but he looks like he’s ready to flee the scene of Dylan’s crime.

“That was—stupid,” Dylan says hurriedly, and just barely avoids tacking on, _and reckless, and very M.J.-wannabe of me, and have I mentioned stupid yet_. He breathes heavily through his nose and catches a whiff of cologne. It smells familiar but Dylan’s brain is too fried to think why. _Not important_. “Sorry.”

If he doesn’t die of embarrassment first, Dylan is going to become a hermit and never the see the light of day ever again. At the very least he’ll Eternal Sunshine himself and forget this ever happened.

Jaeger nods diplomatically. “I should—” he says, and Dylan says, “Yeah! Right. Totally. People to save, bad guys to tame.”

Bad guys to tame? Dylan is going to fling himself off this roof in a second.

“Right,” Jaeger coughs out, before leaving Dylan to his own devices.

 _God_.

  
  
  
  
  


Connor is home more than he was, but even then, Dylan barely catches glimpses of him. There are a couple of early mornings when Dylan has to push a cup of coffee into Connor’s eager hands instead of the other way around, late nights when Dylan runs into him in the kitchen on his way to grab a midnight snack, the odd day when they see each other and no one is in a rush to go anywhere.

 _Midterms_ , Dylan reasons, even when he hears Connor sneaking back into the apartment at some ungodly hour.

Lately Dylan has been leading a double life he is fastidiously trying to put behind him, or under him, or with the mess of clothes shoved carelessly into his closet, so he can’t judge.

Leon is busy, too, which Dylan only finds out through his coffee runs when someone named _Darnell_ tells Dylan that he’s covering for some of Leon’s morning shifts. He _is_ there when Dylan gets sick and tired of staring at the wall and decides that staring at the wall of the coffee shop is going to do his midterm paper a world of good, though.

Leon sets down a mug of something that isn’t coffee in front of Dylan. “I know I owe you a free coffee, but consider this on the house, too.”

Dylan eyes it appraisingly. It smells good, whatever it is. Dylan has never actually thought to order anything besides coffee here—or anywhere else—but he takes a delicate sip, now. _It_ ends up being hot chocolate, and it tastes as good as it smells. Dylan doesn’t mean to moan, but he does, and there’s no take-backs, so he’s just going to have to deal.

An amused smile tugs at Leon’s lips. “I’ll leave you two alone.”

Dylan doesn’t know why it takes him so long to taste the peppermint. Halfway through his paper, he stares out the window, licks at his lips, thinks, _Huh_. _Peppermint_. Then it hits him as he’s reaching for his second mug. Peppermint and chocolate. The cologne.

It’s a surprise he doesn’t do a spit take, honestly.

  
  
  
  
  


Dylan is pretty sure Connor is dating a superhero.

  
  
  
  
  


Honest to God, a real life superhero.

  
  
  
  
  


Talking to Connor isn’t an option. If Dylan is wrong, he can laugh it off, but he can’t guarantee Connor will laugh with him. If he’s _right_ —Dylan doesn’t want too much stock into that particular train of thought, but the questions keep filtering in. Does Connor break up with Leon? Does Dylan end up as the third wheel to Superman and Lois Lane if Connor _doesn’t_? These aren’t even worst case scenarios.

Talking to Leon definitely isn’t an option. Dylan needs proof one way or another, and who’s to say Leon wouldn’t just lie to his face when confronted about his secret identity? Best case scenario: Leon _doesn’t_ lie, and Dylan gets a personal tour of his bat cave or some unsuspecting mansion or whatever fancy schmancy hideout the Wonder Kids have adopted as theirs. Worst case scenario: Leon— _Jaeger_ —puts years of training and, like, professional assassin-ing to good use, and Dylan has a tragic accident that no one suspects as anything else.

Dylan may not be eager to pay off college loans, but he’s less eager to die young, thanks.

That does fuck all to explain why he decides following Leon is a bright idea, but here he is. It’s past the point of return, now that he’s fully committed. Check _questionable decision-making_ off his to-do list.

He’s not _stalking_ Leon. He’s just—studying Leon, following him intently, watching his every move. Pretending to be totally interested in the sunflowers outside a flower shop when Leon looks back in Dylan’s direction. Not panicking when he loses Leon down an alleyway. Just normal things.

“You’re not very subtle,” says Leon’s voice from behind him, while Dylan is in the middle of cursing out alleys. Jesus.

“We can’t all be one with the shadows,” he says bitterly, once he’s recovered enough from his _heart attack_ to string words together.

“We can’t all infuriatingly involve ourselves in other people’s business,” Leon counters, deadpan. He breathes deeply several times, in through his nose, out through his mouth. Whether for his own benefit or Dylan’s remains a mystery. “How much do you know?”

“Enough,” Dylan says cryptically.

Leon considers him briefly, then sighs to the heavens. “You’re buying me beer up to my standards.”

  
  
  
  
  


Everything comes to a head on a Saturday.

By _comes to a head_ Dylan means _he gets kidnapped_.

He was in the middle of trying to unlock the apartment door without setting down any of the groceries he was carrying when he felt a sharp prick in his neck and the world went a little lopsided. His last conscious thought was that the _groceries_ were gonna go to waste, as if that was _really_ the most pressing issue—

And then cold water was being thrown in his face by one of Meltdown’s henchmen, and Dylan was waking up in a dingy warehouse, because that was his life now.

Since then, Dylan has rolled his eyes through five different interrogations, played approximately sixteen rounds of I Spy by himself—one with the stooge he actually likes, who either is dumb enough to believe Dylan will actually tell him something if he gets his way or pities the poor fool who has to deal with the _airheads_ he works with—and been bribed with a variety of sandwiches and sodas. If they’re trying to _bore_ Dylan to death, it’s working.

Dylan can barely contain his elation when Leon appears. “It took you long enough,” he says, which understandably confuses the lackey that just came in to babysit Dylan, who gestures at himself— _who, me?_ —before being knocked out cold.

Leon sighs deeply, as if he’s resigned himself to having to save Dylan from harrowing circumstances. “You could be a little more grateful.”

“That didn’t work out so hot for me last time,” Dylan reminds him wryly, and then winces, because he’d rather forget the stupid kiss, and so would Leon, probably. One of these days Dylan is going to learn to shut his mouth. “Uh. Forget I said that?”

“Forgotten,” says Leon, deliberately focusing on cutting through Dylan’s restraints.

Watching him, Dylan can’t help but think of Connor—not _because_ he’s watching Leon, because that’d be weird, though they might already be past that. _Be safe_ , Connor said. Dylan’s been doing a bang-up job of that.

“Is Davo—?” he asks, because they know where Dylan lives, don’t they? Which means they know where Connor lives, too.

“Connor’s fine,” Leon promises him, his palms warm on Dylan’s knees when he sits back on his heels, just for a second, to stare up at Dylan for the first time. Quiet, like a confession, he says, “I’d never let anything happen to him,” and Dylan isn’t sure if he’s imagining the _or you_ that goes unsaid, but the sentiment warms him either way.

They’re staring at each other when Spectacle makes a commotion bursting through the door. “Is he—” he’s in the middle of saying, carefully setting aside the door he just broke off its _hinges_ by using the _handle_ , oh my _god_ , and stops dead in his tracks when he spots Dylan.

Possibly Dylan’s hero worship can be seen from a mile away.

Leon rolls his eyes towards the ceiling and says, to Spectacle, “He’s fine.” Dylan feels a little out of the loop, but his suspicions that they’re talking about him are confirmed when Leon pauses, wide-eyed, as though he’s just remembered to ask, “You are, right?”

“It’s a little late to be asking that, isn’t it?” Neither Leon or Spectacle look exactly thrilled by his answer, so Dylan waves a hand. “Yes. I’m fine. Bored out of my mind, before you showed, but unharmed.”

Spectacle sounds incredulous. “Bored?”

There’s a brief silence as Leon casts a wary glance towards Spectacle, and then he says, “Something is wrong.”

“The comms are down,” says Spectacle slowly. Good, Dylan’s not the only confused party here. “I couldn’t reach you. That’s why—”

“No, shut up,” Leon says, not unkindly. His head is tilted, ears perked up, straining to hear something Dylan can’t. “ _Spec_ , something is wrong.”

“What—”

The explosion is to be expected, really.

  
  
  
  
  


Dylan is, like, 99% sure he’s dead.

The 1% isn’t completely convinced, because the ringing in his ears _won’t stop_ , and his mouth tastes like ash when Dylan coughs. His vision fades in and out, time moving like molasses. The pain isn’t as forgiving, spiking upward and onward towards unbearable, burning everywhere.

Fingers touch clumsily at his neck after what feels like an eternity of laying there miserably.

“—alive—” he hears, though Dylan thinks he misses a chunk of it and the rest of the conversation.

“—need to get—”

“—leave you—”

“—not _asking_ —”

When he thinks he can bear to open his eyes, he’s sitting up, which doesn’t make sense, because Dylan doesn’t have the energy to _breathe_ , much less do anything like move uncooperative limbs, but then he realizes that someone is supporting him, Dylan’s back pressed to their chest, and that makes more sense.

 _Spectacle_ , Dylan realizes, as he and Leon do a trade-off, Leon gathering Dylan into his arms like there’s a shipping label that warns **FRAGILE, PLEASE HANDLE WITH CARE** on his person. It still hurts like a bitch, but it’s the thought that counts.

“Ow,” he croaks. Squeezes his eyes shut against the pain.

Now that he’s 99% sure he isn’t dead, he 100% wants back his life from before all these near-death experiences.

It takes him a while to process that he’s not in the maelstrom of chaos anymore when the ringing in his ears dies down enough for him to make out more than a couple of words, and he’s grateful for the change of scenery when he inhales sharply and doesn’t get a lungful of smoke.

It’s bright, but it’s more bearable, in Leon’s shadow.

“You with me?”

Haloed by sunlight, Leon is—Dylan doesn’t want to say beautiful, but he _is_ , painted in gold even as the edges of Dylan’s vision go dark. It’s not something he should be thinking about his best friend’s boyfriend, but it’s not like Dylan hasn’t done stupider things recently: realizing too little too late that he’s in love with said best friend, for one, not to mention unknowingly making out with said boyfriend.

“Maybe,” slurs Dylan, voice hoarse.

Spectacle touches down on the ground not far away, calling for Leon by name, frantic. He reaches for something inside his helmet, and then he’s talking again, but it’s not—Dylan knows that voice and it’s not Spectacle’s. “ _Dyls_ ,” he says, voice thin with panic as he drops to his knees beside them, and he’s reaching for Dylan, and—

Everything fades away.

  
  
  
  
  


The first time he stirs, Dylan only remembers bits and pieces: too-bright lights that hurt his eyes, voices talking over each other, everything blurring together. His eyes slip shut before they ever really open.

The second time he wakes up, it’s dimmer—not pitch black, but dark enough that Dylan isn’t blinded upon opening his eyes. To his left, he can just barely make out the shape of Connor at his bedside, hunched over but keeping vigilant, fingers clasped loosely around Dylan’s. He looks like someone’s run over his dog. Or Dylan. There’s something warm pressed against his right arm, but he’s out like a light before he can think too much about it.

By the third time, Dylan feels, vaguely, like he’s been bitch-slapped by the wrath of God, now that the drowsiness has passed. The inside of his head feels like scrambled eggs, or like a pumpkin Hulk smashed the holy hell out of. All things considered, it could probably be worse than a hangover amped up to an eleven. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck ass.

“It does,” a voice confirms from his left, and sure enough, when Dylan blinks his eyes open, there’s a complete stranger hovering beside his bed. He’s not dressed like any nurse or doctor Dylan’s ever seen. “Because I’m not,” the guy goes on, amused.

Dylan blinks up at him. His brain-to-mouth filter might be garbage, but he’s usually self-aware enough to at least recognize when it’s being garbage. Keyword being usually. “Either I’m on really good drugs, or you’re really reading my mind.”

Something brushes up against his mind, prodding gently, as if waiting for permission, before a voice says, _Both, though the morphine is probably already wearing off_.

Out loud, the guy says, “Oracle.” Holy shit. “You can call me Ryan, though.”

“That’s—”

“Your brother’s name,” Ryan finishes for him. Right. Telepath. Dylan’s still trying to wrap his mind around that. No pun intended. “The guys call me Nuge, if you’d rather call me that instead. Nugent-Hopkins.”

The guys. A superhero team. Holy shit, Dylan is in a super secret super hideout. What even is his life? He’s not about to drop the opening lines from Bohemian Rhapsody, but he thinks them. Very loudly. That’s probably the equivalent of breaking out into song, with a telepath around, but Ryan at least looks mildly amused instead of annoyed when his gaze flicks back to Dylan’s face.

 _Sorry_ , Dylan thinks, and hopes his sheepishness isn’t lost in translation.

A throat clears from the doorway just as Ryan is finishing up.

“Can I have a sec with him?”

Connor looks like a hot mess, but his voice is steady.

“Sure,” Ryan says, very slowly, gauging the shift in the air, before he practically flees the room.

Now that they have a moment alone, everything out in the open, they should have plenty to say. Neither of them are speaking, though, both of them avoiding looking at each other, and that’s fine, except for how it’s really not. This is too much of a standoff for it to be anything other than awkward.

It takes a while, but Connor is the one to break the silence. “Dylan—”

“Were you ever going to tell me?” Dylan cuts in, but it loses any bite when he takes a more careful look at Connor: eyes red like he’s cried more than once, mouth twisted in obvious guilt, dark circles from lack of sleep. Connor always was a martyr. “Did you not trust me?”

“It didn’t have anything to do with trust,” Connor says, low, fingers flexing at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. “It was—Dyls, you have to understand this is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. I was just trying to protect you. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to you.”

“I know,” Dylan says, because he does. Connor may not reciprocate the kind of love constantly threatening to crush Dylan’s heart in a vice grip, but he does love Dylan. Unquestionably. Through good and bad, thick and thin—Connor’s had to put up with so much of Dylan’s shit, but he’s done it, no ifs, ands or buts about it, because Dylan was worth it apparently. In the here and now, Dylan is trying to be worth it. “Ditto. Y’know?”

The unreadable look from before, back at the apartment on the morning Dylan did his not-walk-of-shame walk of shame, is back, hard to miss as Connor’s eyes flit over Dylan’s face, but he must find whatever he’s looking for because he shuffles forward, closing the distance between them, and—oh. _Oh_. Connor is kissing him. His thumb sweeps along Dylan’s jaw, and Dylan tips his head up subconsciously. The kiss is enjoyable for all of five seconds before Dylan abruptly remembers that Connor has a boyfriend and forces himself to pull away.

He shouldn’t have to spell it out for Connor, but he does. “We can’t.”

Connor looks confused, which just confuses _Dylan_. “What?”

“ _What_?” Dylan parrots back disbelievingly. He swats at Connor’s chest, but only half-heartedly. “Do you have amnesia? You have a boyfriend, dude.” A boyfriend Dylan unknowingly made out with—seriously, how was Dylan supposed to _know_ —but that seems less important, in the grand scheme of things.

“Oh,” says Connor. “Um.” There’s a loaded pause, and then Connor says with a grimace, “We’re not dating.”

Dylan is hopelessly confused, to say the least. “What do you mean, you’re not dating?” The aggressive air quotes are heavily implied.

“It was just a cover,” Connor explains, sinking into the chair beside Dylan’s bed. “For superhero stuff. Crime-fighting, you know?” Dylan doesn’t, actually, but he thinks he gets the gist of it. “We were—” He sighs, carefully touches Dylan’s hand before seemingly thinking better of it. “I was going to be out a lot. I figured you’d ask less questions about my whereabouts if you assumed I was at someone else’s place.”

There’s a lot of questions Dylan could be asking. There’s a lot of questions he _should_ be asking, but what comes out of his mouth is, “You mean to tell me you haven’t tapped that?”

Connor is, understandably, expecting the question less than Dylan. His mouth rounds out, huffs out a breath, snaps shut. Over text, he would probably be passive-aggressively sending Dylan one horrified emoji after another right about now. Yeah, Dylan’s wondering why the fuck he asked that, too.

“We’ve—done _that_ ,” Connor says, finally. His cheeks are pinking up again. “We’re just not— It wasn’t serious, or anything. We aren’t dating.”

The way he says _dating_ sounds an awful lot like when Dylan tried to reason to Mitch that it’s not dating if you’re just boning as bros. Oh, buddy.

“Davo,” he says, and in five seconds, he’s going to hate himself, more than he already does, but Dylan knows, and he thinks Connor probably knows it, too, deep down. “You can’t fake what you had with him.”

Whatever Dylan’s expecting, it isn’t Connor saying, “Just like I couldn’t fake what I had with you?” At this point, everything is starting to feel like a coma dream. Now that Dylan thinks about it, he hasn’t actually ruled out that this isn’t one. “You had to know how I felt. There’s no way you didn’t.”

“I didn’t,” insists Dylan, whose brain is trying— _trying_ —very desperately to keep up with Connor, and life, and his own heart, everyone and everything moving at the speed of light. Talk about the story of Dylan’s life. This is _news_ to him, okay? “Are you telling me _you_ didn’t?”

Connor looks insulted just by the implication that they’d be having this conversation if he had the slightest inkling.

Dylan attempts a laugh that comes out wobbly and wrong, because all this time devoted to pining could have been devoted to _boning_. And, like, not boning. They could have been holding hands, or kissing every time Dylan procrastinated and distracted Connor from his own work, or chilling on the couch _not_ five feet apart because they were trying to not be gay, or sharing breakfast as they did the crossword together.

Okay, maybe not the crossword thing. Dylan hates crosswords. Semantics, though.

But maybe it was better this way.

More complicated than Dylan liked, but better.

“So,” he starts conversationally. “Leon.”

They ought to talk about it. Him. Them?

For a second he thinks he’s not going to rip the band-aid off, but then: “I kind of made out with him?”

With everything that’s happened Dylan is surprised that he’s surprised that Connor’s not surprised.

“You remember what you told me back in high school, when we were looking at colleges?” Connor asks, and he looks more earnest than is warranted when he quotes, verbatim, “ _Life’s a river, Davo. You gotta make like the current and go with the flow_.”

That startles Dylan into laughing for real this time, in part because he’s touched by Connor remembering, but mostly because: “Do you even remember half the dumb shit I did in high school, dude? Don’t quote words of wisdom from someone who broke his arm in three places sneaking out of his bedroom and then made up some ridiculous story about bike-jousting to cover his own ass.”

“By that logic, I shouldn’t take your advice to not take your advice.”

Yeah, okay. Fair.

At some point Connor gets on the bed with him, and Dylan’s thrown for a loop because they haven’t shared a bed since the last time they— _since The Last Time_. But it’s nice to be this close to him, pressed together shoulder-to-elbow, and it’s nice to just. Talk. It feels like they haven’t done it in a long time. Not really. Not properly. Not like this.

Connor talks about his other life, the one Dylan never knew about but gets to know about now, and Dylan talks about how he thought Connor was totally Lois Lane, how he was wrong, how Dylan is Lois Lane, in retrospect, and does that mean Connor is Superman, and does that mean Leon is Batman, and Dylan is totally Lois Lane in a bizarro threesome with Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne, and Connor laughs and laughs and draws Dylan closer until he’s breathing soft laughter into Dylan’s cheek.

It’s easy to lose track of the time.

“I’m interrupting,” Leon says from the doorway, with three to-go cups of what Dylan can only assume is steaming magic. He looks completely unperturbed. How is it that nothing’s changed when everything has? Dylan is probably not in the right state of mind to answer that soundly, but he makes like a current.

Go with the flow, eh?

“Nah,” says Dylan, smiling. “We were just talking about how you should go out on a date with the both of us.”

  
  
  
  
  


The morning dawns, too early, in bright orange hues filtering in through the big picture windows of Leon’s loft, the first time Dylan sleeps over. It’s just Connor in bed with him, face bruised but the smell of coffee brewing wafts through the apartment, so Dylan has a pretty good idea where Leon snuck off to.

Predictably, he’s in the kitchen when Dylan finally pads out of the bedroom.

His back is turned to Dylan, shirtless, briefs sitting low on his hips, so Dylan lets himself stare.

Because he’s allowed to, now.

Dylan doesn’t _love_ Leon, or maybe not like that, not yet—not the way Connor obviously loves him, at least, or the way Connor loves Dylan, or the way Dylan loves Connor—but he thinks he could learn to. They’ve got common ground, in Connor, and Dylan knows what Leon’s lips feel like pressed against his, and that Leon has a battle scar spanning the length of Dylan’s palm on his thigh from playing hockey, not from any actual battle. That’s a head start, if Dylan’s ever seen one.

“Hey,” murmurs Dylan, bumping his hip companionably against Leon’s. “Make me a cup?”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


(Sentinel is a force to be reckoned with, when Dylan finally meets him as Sentinel. “Darnell Nurse,” he says. His smile is friendly, but his handshake screams _I crush bones with my bare hands for a living when I’m not making coffee for other people_. “AKA the guy who can kill you in your sleep if you break either of their hearts.”)


End file.
